The Print Project: Creating Four Color Lithographic Plates

I talked to some friends who have been following The Print Project, and I seem to have managed to completely confuse them.

I brought one friend to the studio and walked her through my process and that seemed to help. I am hoping that this little video will do the same for you. In it I show how I am preparing four “films”, or plastic layers, that will later be converted into metal plates. These plastic layers are used very much like a film negative. Tim Sheesley at Corridor Press will use them to burn the image to a metal plate.

For now, all I need to do is put the image of a single color on a single plastic “film”: red, yellow, blue and black.

Joe, I have not been very logical with how I have gone about this. Its due in part with my lack of experience with editing. I wanted to show what I had to do to create the plates, first by transferring the image to the plastic sheet and then, later, the printer will use that like a negative and burn the image onto a metal sheet. I also wanted people to know what kind of labor is involved with making a print.

This print is from a painting I did called “Almond Tree”. The original painting is 60 inches by 70 inches. I am not sure if the image will work well on this smaller size. Of course it will change and become its own thing. This is not a replication of the painting. And I am looking forward to playing with the inks to get something that works well as a print. I just hope that everything lines up well enough that the image can be read. There was no way for me to see that as I made each layer.

Rob, The pen is Pentel Arts Pigment Ink Color Brush. You can find it on page 373 of the Blick catalog. Item #H22504-2020.
It lasted almost through all 4 plates and the brush only started splitting on the last one, but it still had more ink! When you get it I believe you have to remove the little red band to make the ink connect with the brush. And it had one other interesting quality. The brush screws together with the pen/ink part counter clockwise. Must be a Japanese thing. I thought it was an excellent tool.